Quick Shots: Private high schools don't need waivers

Saturday

Apr 26, 2014 at 4:00 PM

By Matt TrowbridgeRockford Register Star

The IHSA needs to make up its mind: Do private and magnet schools have an advantage or not? Simple in life is usually better. There are only 272 words in the Gettysburg Address and 313 in the Ten Commandments. That’s good. U.S. law being so complicated that married couples have 1,138 benefits, rights and protections that unmarried people don’t is not so good.

The biggest problem with the 1.65 attendance multiplier is that the IHSA has been tinkering with it from the start. Adding a “success formula” as Indiana did so perennial state champs move up one class is a good step, but taking the multiplier away for all private-school sports that don’t win four-straight regional titles (or two sectionals or one state trophy in four years) is not. Boylan, which has never asked for help, will now drop down to Class 2A in girls soccer despite 15 regional titles in 16 years, because it didn’t win in 2011.

If a rash of private schools win state titles in lower classes, I fear it could create a backlash big enough to make the IHSA separate public and private schools in the postseason, the way Wisconsin and several other states have done. I’d hate that. All of our schools belong under the same playoff umbrella. But it’s also silly to move Boylan down to Class 3A in basketball with the NIC-10‘s two smallest schools, Freeport and Belvidere. Only the IHSA could say it’s not fair to Boylan to play against fellow Rockford schools East, Auburn, Guilford and Jefferson in the state basketball and baseball playoffs.

Cards missing hits

Can a team get lucky for 162 games? Sounds impossible, but the Cardinals almost won the World Series last year mostly because a team that hit .269 overall hit .330 with runners in scoring position. That’s 18 points higher than the previous record set 63 years ago by the Boston Red Sox, according to ESPN.com’s David Schoenfield.

Sabremetricians have long argued there is no such thing as “clutch hitting.” Now, they say it’s by no more than plus or minus 8 percent. If the Cardinals were truly “clutch” hitters, wouldn’t they stay “clutch.” St. Louis batted .264 with runners in scoring position in 2012 (less than its overall .271 mark) and is at .234 this year, again under its overall .243 average. That’s the main reason the Cardinals have gone from third in the Majors in scoring to 28th.